I placed my hands around her neck. She looked at me - through me - with complete disinterest. No one in the classroom acknowledged my existence. Even Mr Gladly continued on with his lesson as if I weren't there.
I squeezed with all my might, to no effect. I threw punches and kicks at her, but they barely even stirred her hair. My 'scream' of frustration was utterly mute.
"There a draft in here?" Emma muttered to herself, so low only I caught it.
I was cut off from the world, and I couldn't even get revenge on the people who caused it.
Emma leaned over and muttered a joke to Sophia. I didn't catch it, but both of my tormentors seemed to find it amusing. Mr Gladly regarded them for a moment, then shook his head in an 'oh you' gesture before continuing on with his lesson like nothing happened. If I'd started laughing in class like that, there would have been hell to pay.
I couldn't take looking at Emma and Sophia's smug faces anymore. I bolted from the classroom, straight through the wall to outside.
Wind sighed through the trees and stirred the leaves on the ground.
Whether it stirred my hair or my clothes, I couldn't tell. I couldn't even see if I had clothes on or not. For all I knew I could've been naked. I was invisible. A ghost. A being incapable of interacting with the world.
Not that there was much difference between the way I was now and the way I was before. In fact, in a twisted way, you could say I was better off this way.
I felt myself laugh, my shoulders shaking, but couldn't hear it. I couldn't remember what my voice sounded like at this point.
I ran from the school, moving faster than a human had any right to. I could pass straight through people, cars and buildings, so I ran in a straight line with no destination in mind. I passed through a family home. I ran past a butcher skinning a carcass. I even drifted by a mugging without drawing a glance.
I sprinted at full tilt for about twenty minutes without issue. By the time I stopped, my physical state was no different than if I'd gone on a leisurely stroll. No lactic acid, no rapid heartbeat, not even a laboured breath. I wasn't sure I needed to breath at all. I did the motion of it out of habit.
I looked around and found I was in the middle of a busy street downtown, cars and buses passing straight through me, passengers and all. The street was bustling with people, not one of them aware of my existence. Well, again, that wasn't much different to before.
Sighing, I made my way to the edge of the road and sat on the sidewalk. I stretched out my legs and let cars pass through them. It tingled a bit every time, like a brief flash of pins and needles.
I got up and started walking, looking at where my feet should be. People strode past behind me, engrossed in their own little worlds. Their own conversations. I idly wondered how long it had been since I'd spoken to anyone for real. That led to thinking about whether I'd get to talk to anyone ever again.
If I'd ever get to talk to Dad again.
Probably the only person who'd miss me anyway.
And it would crush him. Already was crushing him.
I hadn't bothered to go back and visit the house since a few days after I became like this. It was too painful.
Seeing him there talking to the police. Desperately begging them to find me. Calling all his friends. Eyes lighting up whenever the phone rang, only to come crashing down to Earth as the conversations went on. The look on his face when they told him they were calling off the search had been the last straw.
I'd 'screamed' and 'cried', throwing myself at him and every object in the house, searching for some way I could get in contact with him. A way I could let him know I hadn't abandoned him.
But there was nothing I could do. And I could see it in his eyes.
Or, more accurately, I could see that lack of 'it' in his eyes. Life. He'd given up, right then and there.
Right in front of me.
I couldn't handle that. I couldn't reconcile that man with the one who raised me.
Since then, every time I'd tried to go back to the house I'd feared the worst.
What am I going to find if I go in there? I'd always ask myself. Would he be there waiting for me? Would he be drowning in a bottle?
Would he… would he give up for real?
I didn't know. I hated not knowing. But I wasn't strong enough to find out.
I was an idiot. A coward. But I just couldn't be the one to find him. What would I be able to do, anyway?
'You're useless, Taylor Hebert' Emma had said to me once, in one of her little insult sessions.
I agreed with her.
A dog barking brought me back to my senses, alerting me that I was now well away from downtown. I must have been moving much faster than I thought; I was now in the docks, the boat graveyard just a five-minute walk away. I looked down to the source of the noise, a dog barking every few seconds and letting out a low growl just a few feet away from me, its eyes shifting around the area and its snout sniffing rapidly.
I smiled despite myself. I reached down to stroke the dog's head before I could catch myself. My hand passed straight through the dog's head. I cursed at my own stupidity, but as I went to draw my hand back the dog lunged.
Straight at me and through me. I turned to see what the dog was chasing but found that it was scrabbling to turn around. It lunged through me again.
Surely not…
What had changed? I'd passed through plenty of dogs in the last few weeks, much to the same effect as everything else. This one though…
I could only stand there in shock as the dog lunged for me over and over. I took two steps to my left to test it, and the dog lunged straight at me again. I kept moving, and the dog kept finding and attacking me, or at least trying to.
"Brutus," someone shouted from behind me. "Down! Here!"
The dog - Brutus - immediately gave up on the attack and bounded towards a butch girl in a brown leather jacket. I presumed she was his owner. She scratched the dog behind the ears, looking around suspiciously.
"The hell got into you all of a sudden?" She looked down at Brutus as if expecting an answer. "Not like you."
After staring for a bit more, she shrugged her shoulders with a grunt and set off, Brutus following behind her along with two other dogs I hadn't noticed before. I was still too stunned from what I'd just experienced to move.
Someone had noticed me. They saw me, at least to a degree. I felt like crying. It had been weeks since anyone's gaze had done anything but go straight through me. I couldn't give a shit if it was just a dog.
I would have taken an ant noticing me. I would have taken fallen leaf moving slightly on contact with my skin. I would have taken any sign at all that I was still here. That I was in the real world, not just some invisible observer staring through a window from another dimension.
I would have hope.
I did have hope now. All thanks to one slobbering dog.I could have kissed him.
Speaking of…
I had to run to catch up with the girl, but it didn't take long. She walked with the dogs at her side, giving them commands and then bestowing treats on them when they got it right. She led them, and me, on a winding path between the various warehouses, alleys and back roads of the docks. We didn't see a single other person on a trip before we arrived at our apparent destination.
I had the briefest moment of trepidation as the girl opened the door to the warehouse and stepped through. This would surely be trespassing or spying to some degree. But what else could I do? Where else could I go?
It wasn't like she would know I was there anyway… which I supposed was the whole moral crux of the issue. Well, the dogs might. But that was the whole point. I wanted them to know I was there. I wanted to figure out how they knew. How I could interact.
I was spurred into motion by the door slamming shut. It didn't mean much to me, I could go straight through the wall. In side was a wide space, though covered in dust and dirt. It was pretty much empty, save for a set of stairs leading to an upstairs area. The girl lead her dogs up to the second floor and stepped through. I ran up the stairs to follow.
"Rachel," a man's voice greeted the girl's arrival. "Did anyone see you?"
Rachel shrugged her shoulders and strode through the room to sit on the sofa. Her dogs were right at her heels and hopped up beside her, Brutus resting his head on her lap. The TV was playing some kind of cartoon. One of those Chinese ones.
"That's not good enough, Rachel." The man - or, well, more of a boy, gave an exasperated sigh. I looked at him properly for the first time. He was a young black man, somewhere between 16 and 19 at a guess, with a cornrow hairstyle. I might have found him attractive, if I'd had any time to discover what my 'type' might be.
"Ow!"
I spun to face the sofa again, just in time to see a boy with curly-black hair fall off the sofa. He had a strangely distant look in his eyes; it made me shiver. "What the hell, bitch?"
"Don't fuck with my dogs." Rachel replied as if it was obvious. She barely seemed bothered by the blatant insult.
Muttering to himself, the boy got back on the sofa. "Didn't need to kick me off the sofa."
"Didn't need to fuck with my dog!"
"Your dog didn't need to shove its balls in my face," the boy said, turning back to the other guy. "Tell her, Brian."
Brian held a stern expression. "That's enough from both of you. I'm not gonna tell anyone to be friends, but if we're gonna make this team work - and we are going to make this work, I've got too much riding on this - then we can't be dealing with this arguing crap all day."
I found that I was rapidly looking back and forth between the three forces, trying to catch any reactions.
Make this team work?
Suspicions started to form in my mind.
"Well said, Brian." A Blonde haired girl emerged from a room in the corner, a half smile on her face. "We've all got reasons to be here, let's not fuck it up, Alec?"
'Alec' snorted and turned back to the TV, apparently having lost interest. Rachel glared at the blond girl for a moment, before going back to messing with her dogs.
Brian rolled his eyes and motioned to the documents on the table. "Sure this will work, Lisa?"
Lisa grinned. "Should do. Boss had me get all the relevant files straight off the child services data centre. With a bit of sleight of hand and cajolery, you'll get what you were promised."
At first impression, I'd thought this girl was leading things. From the way she was talking, that didn't appear to be the case. Some kind of boss? Things were looking shadier and shadier, but what could I do about it? And would I even do anything if I could?
Hell, if I could do anything I wouldn't be here in the first place. My problems wouldn't have existed, and I wouldn't have got so desperate for contact and interaction that I followed a dog to god-knows-where. It was tragic when I thought about it, but I couldn't help but laugh. No one heard me, of course, just making me laugh harder, getting hysteric.
Brian clenched his fists, narrowed his eyes at Lisa. "I thought it was all going to be legal."
"It will be, as far as anyone can tell. There's just a few things that need to be put in place beforehand."
Brian didn't look best pleased, but he reluctantly nodded and went back to reading the documents. Still grinning, Lisa trotted off to the kitchen and started rummaging through the cupboards. The loft went quiet after that, save for the sounds of playing dogs, Chinese cartoons, shuffling papers and a boiling kettle.
Still reeling from earlier, I decided to try and see if the other dogs could see me like Brutus did.
I phased through the sofa where Alec was, making sure to keep a decent distance away from Brutus. I didn't want him to start barking and set the others off; I'd never be able to tell if the others had noticed me for themselves that way. Rachel had one of the dogs on its back, scratching its belly, so I decided to go for the other, sleeping at her feet.
I moved slowly towards the female dog, and her eyes snapped open as I neared. Just like with Brutus, she looked around all over the place, but she didn't growl or bark. She sat up as I got closer, then was on her feet and clearly agitated by the time I was near enough to touch her. At this point, Rachel had noticed and was staring at the dog with a curious expression.
I looked around. Alec and Brian hadn't even noticed, but Lisa was staring at the dog wide-eyed. "Rachel?" she called out, but said no more.
"I know," the butch girl replied, looking around the room suspiciously, just as she had in the docks earlier.
Brian reacted now, looking between the two girls. "What? What's up?"
"Angelica's acting strange." Rachel replied bluntly. I took two steps back immediately upon hearing her words and looked around the room. For some reason, I was less enthusiastic to be noticed than I had been earlier.
"Strange?" Brian looked at the dog, but obviously didn't have the same insight Lisa and Rachel did. "Strange how?"
Lisa shook her head and held up one finger as she emerged from the kitchen. "Rachel, did anything strange happen on your walk?"
"No."
"Are you sure?"
"Yeah, fuck off. Nothing happened."
Lisa turned her head so Rachel couldn't see and rolled her eyes, then strode across the room to get a better look at the dog. Angelica was a lot less agitated now, but clearly still looking around.
Brian stood up. "Is there a problem?"
Alec turned at that, looking at the other three one by one. "What? What's got you guys' panties bunched up?"
All three ignored him. Rachel was intent on Angelica. After a moment, her eyes flicked over to Brutus.
"Brutus was acting strange too?" Lisa asked. Her grin from earlier was gone.
Rachel shot the blond an irritated look, then reluctantly nodded.
"How? What was he doing?"
"I dunno. Just started barking and lunging at nothing. Trying to bite at air."
Lisa paled, her eyes widening. "Where did this happen?" She managed to ask, her voice low.
"I don't know! Fucking hell." Rachel clicked her fingers and patted the sofa next to her. All the tension seemed to drain from Angelica, and the dog hopped up to Rachel's side with her tale wagging happily, giving her master a few licks on the cheek as she settled. Rachel smiled; I'm pretty sure that was the first time I'd seen her with anything but a scowl.
The room fell into silence. I took the time to back away from the dogs and phase through the couch, then on into the kitchen. I was startled by toast popping out of the toaster. If I had my normal body, I would have fallen onto the counter. As I was, I fell straight through it and into a strange, stuffy darkness. I heard a metallic rattling sound, then an eerie silence descended on the room. It took me a few seconds to realise I'd fallen through the floor, down to the level below.
For a few seconds, I lay still, thinking about what to do. On the one hand, the dogs had noticed me. That was the big one. The greatest and most important factor in this situation, as far as I was concerned; there was hope for me.
On the other hand, I had a bad feeling about this group. I'd barely heard any of them speak more than a few sentences, but just from context, I could pick up that these might not be law abiding citizens. Just the curly-haired boy alone - Alec - gave me the creeps for some reason.
But then, what was I going to do otherwise? Walk around desperately trying to get someone - anyone - to notice me like I had been doing for the past few weeks? I'd probably end up insane if I kept that up.
And so what if they caught me? What was the big deal? I couldn't realistically see a group of kids, none of them that much older than me, doing anything that bad.
There was always the worst case scenario, however.
And maybe that wouldn't be such a bad thing.
A manic laugh overcame me again, silent as death. I couldn't say how long I lay on the dusty floor of that warehouse, laughing at the thought that dying would be better than the pathetic excuse for a life I had right now. No, better even than the shitty life I had before.
I thought of Dad. Of Emma, of Sophia and all the other bullies. I thought of all the things I had to live for and found there were pathetically few.
The laughter died in my chest, but I didn't have the capability for tears anymore. I hopped to my feet and made my way back up the stairs, passing through the door into the seemed to be assuring Brian of something as she cleaned a metal tray off in the sink. Rachel was still playing with her dogs. Alec had moved on to playing computer games on the television.
Abruptly, Lisa looked at the doorway I'd just come from. She narrowed her eyes for a moment, then dried the tray and strode off towards a doorway at the back of the room. "Got stuff to do, don't disturb me for a bit," she said before taking one last look around the room and slamming the door behind her.
What was that about?
It occurred to me, then, that I could just go find out exactly what that was about. I walked across the room and passed straight through the door. I flinched back a little when I found Lisa sat on her bed, staring intently at the door. There was a little beep on her computer and she raised an eyebrow. For a moment I thought she could see me, but waving my hand garnered no response from her. I even tried to speak, despite knowing that I couldn't.
When that failed, I heaved a sigh and took a step away from the door. I realised that she might have been staring at the door itself and turned. There was nothing there except for some electrical wires. I turned again to find that she now had the computer on her lap, staring curiously at the screen.
"So," she said. Her sudden words almost caused me to fall over again. She looked up with a predatory grin on her face. "You're in the room now."
